Girls Ambient Room

“With Ambient the physical environment becomes an interface to digital information
rendered as subtle changes in form, movement, sound, color or light. Current
information interfaces are either interruptive or too detailed. For the first
time in history, ubiquitous wireless networks can affordably deliver digital
information anytime, anywhere. The result for most of us is cacophony. Ambient
wants to make the world calmer.” (Ambient Devices)

Communication
via the Internet has become increasingly pervasive. We use MSN and Yahoo
messenger, email, web based bbs’s, comments on our weblogs, and online as a
means of keeping and forming relationships. Friendster, buddy lists, foaf, and
our online address books record our circle of friends. All of these tools help
us shape both our online and offline personas. Though our internet self in
essence has become less and less disassociated with our ‘real’ self, the tools
themselves remain a virtual construct and are kept at a distance. Tracking the
data associated with these tools is important to people, but they typically
wish to maintain only a peripheral awareness of it. Unfortunately current
methods for maintaining awareness are too intrusive via a multitude of on
screen applications or the out of tune audio alerts.

Our solution is to bring the information into the environment more completely
allowing a persons online persona to shape the environment around them.

Overview and background

The girls’ ambient room uses sound, music, animation and light projections to
communicate information at the periphery of human perception. It was designed
to employ both the foreground and the background of the users attention. In
normal day-to-day interactions we get information in a couple ways; first we
get information from what we are focusing on, our center of attention is
directed. When we are driving down the road, obviously the center of our
attention is in front of us. When we are speaking or talking to somebody we are
constantly focusing on that person and receiving the information. But while we
are driving down the road and while we are talking to someone we are also
getting information from other sources, from ambient sources. When we are
driving outside we may have a sense of whether it’s windy or not by the sound
of the wind or the visual information from the blowing of leaves. When talking
to a friend we may get an idea of what other people are doing, whether they are
busy, or they’re laughing, whether their situation is serious or not by this
ambient sound from the presence of other people in the room.